David Stern: NBA Season Has Been ‘Surprisingly Good’

The NBA has emerged from the ugly lockout looking pretty good, and despite some sloppy play due to fatigue, lack of practice and the brutal schedule, David Stern is happy with where things are. The Commissioner addressed a number of topics during his chat with reporters in Phoenix last night. Per the AP: “NBA Commissioner David Stern said Tuesday it’s been a ‘surprisingly good’ season considering the late start and the potential for ill will among fans in the wake of the labor dispute that erased 16 games from the schedule. Stern also said there already are signs the collective bargaining agreement is having an impact, as teams make personnel decisions to cut payroll to avoid the stiffer luxury tax that the new deal creates. The commissioner said he expects a ‘robust discussion’ on adding goaltending to the areas that can be subject to video replay review by officials. [...] There are issues to be resolved involving what replays would do to interrupt the court action, Stern said. ‘We probably have a dozen things now where we have instant replay, up from nothing,’ he said. ‘What we want to do is get it right without killing the flow of the game.’ Stern met with reporters before the game between the San Antonio Spurs and Phoenix Suns. ‘It’s been a good year,’ he said, ‘surprisingly good for us in terms of all the metrics that we use — television viewership, attendance, merchandise sales, much better than I think we had a right to expect, but we’ll take it because it’s a lot of fun.’ He said that coming off a highly successful season helped, as did getting the season off to a big start with five Christmas day games, followed by some great story lines, particularly Jeremy Lin in New York. Stern said that the collective bargaining agreement ‘is actually beginning to work already in a big way.’”